Volunteer

Jan 23, 2020

1h 33m

★ 10.0

Overview

A film about the unprecedented Swiss grassroots movement of regular citizens who rise to aid thousands of refugees stranded at the European borders. In rich and safe Switzerland people from all backgrounds leave their regular life behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who keep cows in the Swiss Alps, a former commander of the Swiss Army, an elder rich lady residing at the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These unexperienced volunteers take on an adventure that will change their lives forever.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Sulaco Film GmbH

SRF

Volunteer Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Ileana Heer Castelletti

Thomas Hirschi

Sarah Hirschi-Gerber

Michael Grossenbacher

Michael Räber

Lia Bosia

Taha Alahmad

Based on a poem by a Zimbabwean LGBT activist written in response to the gay hate speech that is being perpetuated president Robert Mugabe. The film was shot in South East London UK with a cast of six women from several African countries playing multiple roles in this portrayal of being a lesbian in homophobic Zimbabwe. Five of the actors and the producer are refugees who fled their countries in fear of persecution for their sexuality.

0.0

Apnea

Mar 22, 2025

Bakari was born a slave in Gambia and found himself at age 18 on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. Like his, 14 other voices recount what they went through to get to Europe.

6.8

Human Flow

Oct 2, 2017

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

10.0

Edge of the Valley

Nov 20, 2021

A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.

0.0

Personale

Nov 15, 2024

Folding towels, straightening out sheets, taking bathrobes out of the dryer, stripping beds, cleaning up vomit. Fluffing pillows—making a dent for elegantly turned-up corners—and endless scrubbing, cleaning and clearing up messes. Behind the scenes of a hotel in the Italian Dolomites, the staff do everything they can to serve the guests and prevent complaints. The hotel has four stars, and a fifth is in sight.

4.8

Mr. Gay Syria

Sep 6, 2018

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

0.0

Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician's Life in Peshawar, Pakistan

Jan 1, 1985

Amir, shot during the height of the Afghan civil war in the 1980s, investigates and portrays the life of Afghan refugees living in and around the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan through the experiences of the musician Amir. The aspirations of Afghan refugees are expressed through their political songs dealing with the civil war in Afghanistan, with exile, with Afghan nationalism and with the Islamic revolution. In highly charged and tragic circumstances, music can be used in very direct ways, both to promote solidarity and as an agent of catharsis.

10.0

Refugee Poetry

Apr 2, 2016

The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.

0.0

What the Wind Took Away

Dec 1, 2017

"We, the Yazidis, became doves. Doves without wings", says Hedil. Stranded with her family in a Yazidi refugee camp in Eastern Turkey, she reminisces about her former life in Northern Iraq and recounts the horrors of her escape. The film follows two families' attempts at normality in an otherwise miserable place. (ML)

7.1

Retrograde

Oct 17, 2022

The story of the last months of the 20-year war in Afghanistan through the intimate relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained.

5.8

The Last Season

Apr 25, 2014

In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.

7.5

Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

May 1, 2021

During the Syrian civil war, the district of Yarmouk, home to thousands of Palestinians, became the scene of dramatic and ferocious fighting. Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) is a film that follows the destiny of civilians during the brutal sieges, imposed by the Syrian regime, that took place in the wake of the battles. With his camera, Abdallah Al-Khatib composes a love song to a place that proudly resists the atrocities of war.

0.0

Son of the Streets

Oct 10, 2020

13-year-old Khodor is a child whose family tries to issue him an ID document that proves his existence and gives him the right to education, health-care and movement outside of the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon. Through the process, many of the family's old secrets are revealed.

5.3

Sea Sorrow

Nov 8, 2017

A very personal and dynamic meditation on the current global refugee crisis through the eyes and voices of campaigners, specially children, where past and present establish a dialogue. A reflection on the importance of human rights.

6.3

This Is Home: A Refugee Story

Jan 20, 2018

The lives of four Syrian families, resettled in Baltimore and under a deadline to become self-sufficient in eight months.

7.8

Flee

Jun 17, 2021

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

4.7

The Great Wall

Mar 23, 2015

‘The Great Wall has been completed at its most southerly point.’ So begins Kafka’s short story ‘At the Building of the Great Wall of China’, and so, at Europe’s heavily militarised south-eastern frontier, begins this film. In the shadow of its own narratives of freedom, Europe has been quietly building its own great wall. Like its famous Chinese precursor, this wall has been piecemeal in construction, diverse in form and dubious in utility. Gradually cohering across the continent, this system of enclosure and exclusion is urged upon a populace seemingly willing to accept its necessity and to contribute to its building.

7.0

The Donut King

Aug 24, 2020

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.

7.1

Salam Neighbor

Jun 20, 2015

Two Americans deliberately head to the edge of war, just seven miles from the Syrian border, to live among 80,000 uprooted refugees in Jordan's Za'atari refugee camp.

7.0

A Sense of Justice

Feb 1, 2023

A Sense of Justice, immerses us In a law firm in this same city. There, we can find Christine Mengus and Nohra Boukara, specialized in the rights of foreigners, supported by Audrey Scarinoff and their co-workers.. Stories from their sad, appalling or tragicomic cases alternate with their daily legal work. And as we hear snatches of consultations involving illegal entry or departure, deportation orders, the right to reside or medical assistance, we become witnesses to predictable tragedies, to the administrative or social precariousness induced by such predicaments, and to whole lives depending on court rulings.

Volunteer

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